01 MAN FROM UNCLE: The 43 Years After Affair
by Dan Bivens
Summary: Long after their retirement, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin are reactivated in order to deal with an old nemesis thought long dead. Can they succeed as they had decades earlier? Read before THE COUNTDOWN TO ANNIHILATION AFFAIR
1. Chapter 1

**THE 43 YEARS LATER AFFAIR**

By: Dan Bivens

Chapter 1

"I Prefer the Old Ways Best"

"Is it true?" U.N.C.L.E. Agent 23 asked of U.N.C.L.E. Agent 18 in a hushed, tense tone of voice.

"Yeah", Agent 18 replied with a note of disrespectful disdain. "We've done fine these past couple of decades, why the hell are they coming back? I didn't even know they were still alive!"

Just then, as the outer blast-proof doors, leading into U.N.C.L.E. headquarters' heart, promptly opened, the two gentlemen who have been the subject of such quiet contemplation entered for the first time in decades.

"Welcome Mr. Solo...Mr. Kuryakin", said a lovely and quite shapely woman in business-style attire, holding two upside-down triangle badges designated for those who are considered guests.

Taking said badges in hand, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, both looking quite handsome and fit for men "their age", smiled politely.

"Thank you", Illya said while clipping his guest badge to the pocket of a stylish suit's coat, "you're too kind."

"Yes", Napoleon chimed in with a beaming smile that was purposely crooked as if the passage of years had been utterly inconsequential to them both, "and quite beautiful, too."

Her own polite smile now faltering, followed by a hard glare within her otherwise bedroom eyes, she indicated her own official badge which held the number "1" and added sufficient credence to her pointed declaration, "Uh, Mr. Solo...this is 2007 and I am current head of the New York U.N.C.L.E. Not a glorified 'receptionist'."

While Illya was definitely amused, Napoleon's formerly cocky expression became one of sudden consolation, though not one of complete capitulation.

"Well", he said while audibly clearing his throat, "I suppose things have changed since I was last here. Uh, congratulations Miss..."

"Ms", she quickly corrected, a half-grin of sudden superiority flashing across her quite conversely beautiful countenance, "Hall...Allison Hall. Now...if you two would follow me into the control room...my office...we can discuss the matter that's brought both of you here today."

Even as Ms. Allison Hall, New York U.N.C.L.E. head, turned smartly on fashionably heeled shoes, that Napoleon couldn't help but notice made her legs look especially sexy and did much the same to her, uh, derrière. Both he and Illya noted that the gathering of oh-so-young male and female agents seemed to be eyeing them as if they'd just been excavated out of some archeological dig.

As far as Illya was concerned, it was as he expected it to be. After all, the two of them had not been active since before the final fall of the last governmental remnants of the Soviet Union. He had believed, from what he'd heard filtering out through those few "old timers" still a part of the New York-based organization, that even THRUSH, itself, had become a thing of the past. He, more so than Napoleon it seemed, was much more curious as to just what could have happened in this new age to require such as them to report once again into this hidden-from-the-world top-secret establishment.

For Napoleon, well, he was still too busy admiring the young woman whom time and circumstances had elevated far beyond the "glorified receptionists"; he'd consider the reasons, clearly not good, later.

Besides, Napoleon thought to himself while still wearing a sexually appreciative smirk of a smile, Ms. Hall will let us know the name of this new game soon enough.

"Please", Ms. Hall finally said while gesturing toward two ultra-modern chairs and then allowing that same hand to tap a touch-sensitive pad of colorful flashing squares, "be seated, gentlemen."

As expected, the heavy metal door soundlessly closed with a barely audible click of what Illya logically perceived to be a new magnetic locking mechanism; then Ms. Hall took her seat on the other side of the oval metal table.

"Well, Mr. Solo...Mr. Kuryakin", she began with discernible strain in her voice, highlighted by the forced smile on her undeniably lovely features, "I suppose you'd like to find out why U.N.C.L.E. has called you out of, uh..."

"Retirement?" Illya interjected with a playful half-grin and a twinkle in his blue eyes that immediately called attention to the seemingly impossible fact that neither his mostly-blonde hair or his incredibly unlined face had known the passage of time.

Illya's single-word response brought a reproachful scowl from Ms. Hall, followed by a curt nod, "Yes, Mr. Kuryakin. At any rate, an old enemy has resurfaced that you, Mr. Solo, know very well and you, Mr. Kuryakin, had referenced with HQ computers in order to help advise Mr. Solo...even though your contribution to the affair went virtually unnoticed at the time. My much-belated apologies."

Napoleon and Illya looked at one another with a flood of silent questions flashing through their ageless eyes and across their untouched-by-time faces. God only knows how many such opponents from their combined career as U.N.C.L.E. agents such could tentatively describe. Their curiosity, thankfully, would swiftly be assuaged.

"Gentlemen", Ms. Hall continued with a curious combination of authority and always-present sensuality, even as a manicured finger tapped another flashing colored touch-sensitive square on the oval, metal table's sleek top; which, in turn, activated a moveable wall, like the agents-from-the-past recalled Mr. Waverly doing all those years ago. Only now a sizeable plasma screen was revealed where once there was only a normal-sized, for the 1960s, television screen. Instantly, there was a high-definition, digitally perfect series of images starting with...

"I presume you gentlemen remember this now-destroyed THRUSH-controlled establishment?" Ms. Hall asked with a staid smirk, as if she were purposely testing the memories of two elder ex-agents to make certain time had not taken its toil upon the remaining neurons of their aging brains.

It was Illya who spoke first with a tone that defied adequate dissection, "Of course...United Global Chemical Corporation."

"Tentatively referred to as the Vulcan Chemical Corporation", chimed in Napoleon, proving that his mind was as sharp at Illya's, as was his memory, "it was where Andrew Vulcan, then chief of THRUSH, tried to..."

"He's back!" interrupted Ms. Hall, impatient and anxious to move past the U.N.C.L.E. history lesson. Wanting to get to the heart of a present situation that had arisen in recent days and which warranted the reactivation of agents she, personally, considered to be so far beyond their prime that they could actually be considered deliberate liabilities.

"But", Illya said after he and Napoleon swiftly exchanged perplexed glances that lasted all of two seconds yet seemed to last fully half-an-hour, "that's not possible, Ms. Hall."

"I was there when the place blew and", began Napoleon with a frustrated scowl that seemed to say Young lady, you may now be head of U.N.C.L.E., but I was out there doing my job as an agent before your father even liked girls.

"I'm familiar with the incident, Mr. Solo", Ms. Hall snappishly said, then promptly tapped yet another touch-sensitive control. Which instantly altered the images, thus leaving no doubt as to the truth of the present over the assumptions of the past.

It was the unmistakable image, crisp and clear as though being viewed through a window rather than via a plasma-TV, of Andrew Vulcan: heavily scarred and decrepit beyond the four decades that had elapsed. One of the first THRUSH bigwigs that Napoleon Solo, U.N.C.L.E. Agent 11, had taken on in a, no pun intended, solo mission affair.

"How...?" Napoleon finally managed, even as Illya leaned forward, forearms resting upon his knees, to more closely study the visual of the man both had believed dead.

"That doesn't really matter, Mr. Solo", Ms. Hall said with a barely audible sigh of impatience. "All that does matter is that he's back and the political powers-that-be want you two to stop what U.N.C.L.E. Intel has pegged to be the first great attempt at 'world domination', as laughable as that sounds in this day and age, through a decidedly diabolical means that THRUSH does have at its ready disposal."

"THRUSH?" puzzled Napoleon.

Sitting back once again, Illya added, "But THRUSH collapsed within a few years after the total collapse of communism in my motherland of Russia. Wasn't it?"

Heaving yet another sigh, more audible than the last, of unfettered frustration, Ms. Hall tapped yet another colored flashing square within the tabletop's touch-sensitive panel while fully turning toward the next high-definition digital views on the plasma screen behind her.

Images of what were quite obviously THRUSH agents, still wearing jumpsuits and berets, with the familiar thrush-bird patches, flashed by in a slow-but-steady progression similar to an old-fashioned slideshow.

"As you can see, gentlemen", Ms. Hall intoned in a lecture-like style, "THRUSH never 'died', but grew more technically proficient with the passage of years. Lest you two have forgotten, THRUSH has always stood for Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity. And, quite logically, as the world around them grew more and more technically advanced, so, too, did they. So much so that, apparently, Andrew Vulcan has been spared and, now, has once again assumed his old position as undisputed chief of THRUSH. An organization that has, clearly, survived the fall of the Soviet Union as well as other dramatic global changes."

As that part of the plasma screen slideshow passed, Illya asked a logical question with an easy expression. One telling any outside observer that he was not only taking it all in, but was most likely committing it to a memory that was as near photographic as one could come.

"What is THRUSH up to now?"

Short, to the point, analytical. Same old Illya.

In answer, Ms. Hall half-turned and tapped one last flashing colored touch-sensitive square. The plasma screen's HD display now showed a veritable montage of images. One after the other of jumpsuit-and-beret wearing THRUSH minions going about almost robotic patrol about the exterior of an otherwise innocuous structure; followed just as quickly by a steady stream of sketches, schematics, and more.

"From sources both bribed and obtained at the cost of lives, we now know that THRUSH's latest attempt at 'world domination' comes in a form heralded in by the 'resurrected' Andrew Vulcan in the form of a directed energy system that you gentlemen might've called, in your day, a 'death ray'. Capable of being instantly deployed by accessing unofficial uplinks to our own satellite systems and redirecting it with pinpoint accuracy to whatever geological target they desire."

"What you're describing, Ms. Hall", began Illya, still giving off the impression he was as effectively logical as he was boyishly beautiful, "is the virtual obliteration of millions with the touch of a button. An attack which no country in the free world..."

"Could defend against", Ms. Hall finished without so much as turning to face the Russian-born ex-U.N.C.L.E. agent. "Precisely the problem, Mr. Kuryakin. Now, again from a variety of sources, we know this building, the newest THRUSH headquarters where the directed energy device and uplink are located, is...here."

Now the HD slideshow presentation stopped with a satellite's down-angled view of a forsaken section of Canada, just north of the Continental United States... north of the state of Minnesota. Then the view sharpened quickly and rapidly until it displayed the actual aerial view of the THRUSH HQ site seen earlier in views so close that actual location-identification would've been essentially impossible.

Finally, there was a fairly detailed aerial view of a Minnesota town labeled "Arnessen, MN"; in particular, the view duly denoted what appeared to be lakeside wharves.

"We've arranged a private U.N.C.L.E. jet to fly you two to this location in upstate Minnesota", Ms. Hall stated succinctly, while finally fully turning toward Napoleon and Illya. "Whereby you two will rent or otherwise lease a boat capable of taking you across to the Canadian shores where you'll then do whatever you must to get to the new THRUSH headquarters...and destroy it as well as seeing to it that Andrew Vulcan, this time, stays dead."

She lets her mission orders hang in the air and unabashedly observes Napoleon and Illya share a silent instant that spoke volumes over how much their years of experience as active U.N.C.L.E. operatives, apparently, still seemed to hold tight even after decades of relative inactivity.

"Any questions, gentlemen?"

"Just one", Napoleon said after a tentatively tense few seconds of syrupy silence, as the cocky, crooked smile returned to his otherwise still-handsome face. "Ever considered a more vibrant shade of lipstick, Ms. Hall? It'd really compliment their natural fullness, I think."

Illya rolled his eyes, but still managed an amused smile which he clandestinely covered with one hand while propping one elbow on the ultra-modern chair's arm, even as Ms. Hall heaved a loud sigh of exasperation while simultaneously standing and gesturing toward the now-unlocked and automatically-opening metal door leading out.

"Please report to Section 8 for weapons and equipment."

Just before the two stepped through the open doorway, Napoleon half-turned back toward his exquisitely lovely superior and mischievously asked, "Oh, uh, Ms. Hall, does this mean Illya and I have been re-activated as U.N.C.L.E. agents?"

By way of a wordless response to the ludicrous query, Ms. Hall tapped the final flashing colored touch-sensitive square which caused the heavy metal door to close and, in so doing, pragmatically pushing Napoleon and Illya out.

They were met by the foremost U.N.C.L.E. receptionist/ secretary who replaced their guest badges with upside-down triangle, color-coded, badges with their old numbers, "11" for Napoleon and "2" for Illya, who then innocently asked, "Shall I show you two agents to Section 8's armament and..."

"No", Illya stiffly interjected, ending the decidedly maladroit moment before Napoleon said something urbane-yet-rude, "thank you. I doubt that it's been moved."

Moments later, Napoleon and Illya stepped into that region officially designated as Section 8 and colloquially called "the Lab".

"G'day to ya, mates", a broad-shouldered, square-jawed Aussie, with appropriately ponderous accent, with the appropriately color-coded Section 8 mix emblazoned with the U.N.C.L.E. number "24" on the upside-down triangle badge. "Name's Eric Alexander...I'm in charge o' Section 8 and I'm the man who's gonna see to it ya've got what ya need for yer mission, 'kay."

Though Napoleon instantly liked the big Aussie, Illya found him a little too brash, a little too loud; not at all like the men who used to tend to such field operation needs "back in the day".

"Hello, Mr. Alexander", nodded the half-grinning Napoleon with an overtly friendly tone, "and this is..."

"Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin", finished Eric Alexander with a beaming grin and twinkling green eyes as if he were literally encountering his childhood hero. "A real pleasure, mate. I've sort'a patterned m'self after ya. Uh, no offense, Mr. Solo."

"None taken", replied a reticent and still smiling Napoleon, a bit amused at how uncomfortable this hero-worship from a man clearly in his thirties was to a visibly ageless Agent Kuryakin.

Ever polite, however, Illya managed, "Uh, yes, thank you for the, uh, compliment, Mr. Alexander. May we get on with it?"

"Hm?" Eric the Aussie hummed with genuine momentary bewilderment, then quickly said, "Oh, yeah. Sorry, mate. 'kay, what we need to do is outfit you lads with the best we have to offer in firearms...now our agents today mostly swear by the Glock 18C, which I can show you here..."

Illya and Napoleon watched with the practiced patience that polite society always seemed to demand even from men of action, though their expressions decried their true feelings regarding the weapon: a Glock 18 outfitted with an extra-long clip of 9mm Parabellum ammo; a specially threaded barrel for the fitting of either the flash suppressor, already on the model currently being handled by Eric, or easily outfitted with the ever-useful, in any decade, silencer extension. All the while the Aussie's heavily accented voice droned on and on regarding the 18C version of the semi-automatic handgun he treated with the expected pride one would imagine a member of "the Lab".

"With all due respect, Mr. Alexander", Illya finally intervened with just enough affability in his timbre to cloak the look of lament in his blue eyes, "we prefer the Walther P-38s that we used originally."

"Assuming, of course", chimed in Napoleon with a trivial tilt of his head and a facetious expression to match his satirical tone, "that they've at least been properly maintained since then."

"Walther P-38s?" puzzled the Aussie in charge of U.N.C.L.E. weapons and equipment, while inquisitively eyeing the two out-of-retirement agents as if awaiting some sort of punch-line to an ancient and out of style joke.

But none was forthcoming. So Eric put away the Glock 18Cs while mumbling, just barely loud enough to be heard by Napoleon and Illya, "We have Smith-and-Wesson 4040PDs, Beretta PX4 40s, Heckler-Koch P7s, Desert Eagle Auto-Mags, not to mention add-ons for carbine-like functions, but, no, they want those old Walther P38s..."

Illya and Napoleon could scarcely restrain bemused smirks even as the disillusioned Aussie came back with the requested weapons, "Here ya go, mates...straight outta the hist'ry books o' U.N.C.L.E."

Napoleon and Illya took the two black Walther P38s, with flash suppressor nose and went through the expected inspection motions of clip ejection, slide-cocking, and so forth to adequately exam said weapons before officially signing off on taking their possession.

"Looks good", Napoleon nodded.

"And the add-ons?" Illya requested a split-second after.

Eric Alexander rapidly retrieved the specially designed transport packs with the tooled-to-fit additions needed to turn a handgun into a carbine: barrel extension, fixed metal stock, telescopic scope, and, of course, extra long ammo clips. Next to them Eric lay the soft leather shoulder holsters in which the Walther P38s could be carried clandestinely beneath their suits' coats while in the field, along with extra short and long ammo clips.

"Hm", hummed Illya virtually to himself, "nice to see we get to use nothing but real bullets now, instead of those damnable knockout projectiles."

At last, both Illya and Napoleon proceeded to slip off their coats and, then, slipping on the shoulder holsters. One arm through the primary part, which carried the pistol, the other through the snugly supporting around-the-shoulder strap. Then taking care to secure the anchor strap, leading down from the leather holster's body, to the shiny leather belts worn about the waistbands of their tailored dress pants.

Eric the Aussie then brought forward a few 21st Century devices currently carried by all U.N.C.L.E. agents in 2007.

"'kay, now, mates, lets get down to yer PDAs, which have GPS positioning software, a'course, and provide excellent communications with..."

"Uh", interrupted Napoleon with a second slanted smile gracing his handsome-in-spite-of-age facial features, "just see if you can locate our old pen communicators, Mr. Alexander. I'm sure you have them on hand for 'historical' reasons."

Green eyes going wide, the broad-shouldered, square-jawed Aussie stammered, "B-but they can't do the things a PDA cell can do..."

"Eric", Illya conclusively sighed, somewhat sternly, in order to put an abrupt end to any contention, even as both he and Napoleon put their suits' coats back on, "just get them. Napoleon and I...well, let's just say, Napoleon and I prefer the old ways best."

END OF CHAPTER 1


	2. Chapter 2

**THE 43 YEARS AFTER AFFAIR**

Chapter 2

"Open...Channel D?"

Having shared a company car to JFK Airport, where U.N.C.L.E. meticulously maintained its private jet, Napoleon and Illya now sat in the pressurized opulence of a Learjet-style aircraft flying at an altitude of at least 40,000 feet at sustained speeds exceeding 600 miles-per-hour.

Napoleon was neatly nursing his second single-malt whiskey, while Illya stared intently out one of the oval windows in deep contemplative thought.

"Come now, Illya", Napoleon Solo scolded in a friendly fashion, smirk securely planted upon his somehow younger-than-before face, "I know that look. What's going through that sharp little Russian mind of yours?"

Finally reacting to his friend and fellow U.N.C.L.E. agent, Illya Kuryakin looked directly into Napoleon's incredibly composed countenance and replied, "Doesn't it trouble you in the least that we're about to face two enemies that, until a few hours ago, we both firmly believed were dead and buried. Literally as well as figuratively?"

Casually setting aside the nearly empty glass that had twice held single-malt whiskey within its cut crystal confines, Napoleon leaned forward. Then he said in a matter-of-fact tone, "The only thing that troubles me at this point, Illya, is whether or not we'll want to return to retired life after getting a taste of U.N.C.L.E. operative work again."

Though Illya didn't reply aloud, it was obvious to Napoleon that the twinkle in his colleague's blue eyes definitely indicated that he, too, pondered that self-same thing.

Meanwhile, nestled in the half-frozen greenery of a Canadian area far removed from prying eyes: THRUSH headquarters went about activities not too far removed from those more puerile days of secret agent activities, as its resurrected chieftain contemplated the immediate future.

"How much longer", the heavily scarred remnant of Andrew Vulcan wondered aloud, "until we can strike our first target?"

His lieutenant, a much younger, handsome man by the name of Darien Driscoll, knew better than to do naught but answer with prompt respect for he who was their first, best leader.

"According to the most recent estimations regarding our ability to adequately uplink our weaponized laser system...eight hours, twenty-nine minutes."

Lumbering about the ostensibly legitimate office of a revised United Global Chemical Corporation, now officially, on paper at least, called GlobeChem Corporation, his legs partially cybernetic in order to make damaged muscles work and his formerly broken back board straight because of surgically implanted support flex-rods. Andrew Vulcan grumbled, "Hours...I've waited decades for this moment. New York City shall be the first to feel THRUSH's wrath...my wrath."

"Forgive me for asking, Mr. Vulcan", Darien Driscoll bravely related after keeping such to himself for so long since THRUSH medical engineers and surgeons brought the cold-blooded THRUSH chief back from the brink of indisputable death without becoming a virtual invalid in the process, "but why New York City? Wouldn't it make more political sense to destroy Washington, DC first?"

Rounding his agonized circuit within the offices of a feigned alliance of legitimacy, wincing from the constant sensation of suffering, Andrew Vulcan's haggard visage formed a seditious scowl.

"You are young, Mr. Driscoll, so I shall let such ignorance pass...this time...but do not fool yourself into thinking that the country...indeed, the world...is run by pontificating politicians supposedly elected by the imbecilic masses. It is, and always has been, such secret organizations as U.N.C.L.E. that, as they say, 'make the world go around'."

"Yes sir, Mr. Vulcan", Darien Driscoll said nervously, knowing better than to push the issue any further.

As if to pound his point home, Andrew Vulcan finished by stating with a sneer, "Once U.N.C.L.E., in New York City... along with the city...has been obliterated...the rest of the world...along with the other four or five U.N.C.L.E. sites...shall fall quite quickly."

Andrew Vulcan then shuffled/limped/lumbered across the elegant expanse of the offices to peer into the reflective surface of a makeshift mirror.

Reaching up to his aged, scarred countenance, once so majestically aristocratically handsome, he allowed tremulous fingers to tactfully touch the disfigured facial features; allowed them to scurry along the contours of a prominent nose of nobility.

Though now only a physical ghost of what he used to be, 43 long years ago, before Napoleon Solo forced his hand in a plot to let a prominent African official die in an "accidental" explosion, which nearly caused him to die in the resulting destruction…

Andrew Vulcan wished it were possible to track down Napoleon Solo and personally see to it his death was agonizingly slow. But he knew that, since the ex-U.N.C.L.E. agent's last known location was still in the generalized region of New York City, he would, unfortunately, be granted an expeditious death along with millions more.

A fate not shared by Andrew Vulcan, whose near-death and subsequent surgical resurrection was fraught with profound pain unlike anything, anyone, short of those condemned to the fires of Hell, could or should experience.

"If there is a God or Devil", madly murmured Andrew Vulcan with deleterious desire and harmful hope, "bring Napoleon Solo to me. Grant me the vengeance I deserve."

At the same instant that Andrew Vulcan was making such a sinisterly selfish wish, the recipient of his repugnance, and that person's partner, had deplaned in an out-of-the-way confidential airfield and, then, took a prearranged rental car first toward and then through the town of Arnessen, Minnesota.

"Ever used one of these GPS things before, Illya?" Napoleon Solo asked contritely of the Russian-born U.N.C.L.E. agent currently behind the wheel and, in answer, gesturing toward a crisply displayed screen-map gently guiding them along the proper highways and byways.

"Basically", Illya Kuryakin responded reservedly, "I have kept up with the latest in computer technologies, you know."

"Yes, well", Napoleon commented while quickly clearing his throat, "I have enough trouble operating my DVD player at home. Guess we made a good decision letting you drive."

"Apparently so, Napoleon."

Napoleon wasn't certain, but it seemed to him that a cocksure sarcastic grin furtively flashed across Illya's younger-than-his-years features. Ah, well, Napoleon thought to himself with an internalized sigh, he's got his areas of expertise and I have mine. At least mine wears perfume and dresses sensuously...if I'm lucky. Which I usually am.

Illya then, after several seconds of bloated silence, glanced toward Napoleon and soberly suggested, "Perhaps, Napoleon, now would be a good time for you to contact U.N.C.L.E. headquarters and advise them of our progress."

"Progress?" Napoleon needled, then, a smirking smile flashing across his face, as he promptly pulled the pen communicator from the inside pocket of his still wrinkle-free suit's coat. First, tugging on the pen's top in order to engage the roughly two inch antenna, next tugging outward on the tip of the "ink pen" in order to remove, and then flip over and reinsert, the smallish microphone-speaker composite. Slightly-yet-swiftly twisting the clip-band and, finally...

"Open Channel D, open Channel D", the reactivated U.N.C.L.E. agent whose formerly black hair now held more than its share of gray.

After an unusually long moment of irritating static, a youthful female's voice precariously replied, "Uh, s-sorry. Open...Channel D?"

Napoleon and Illya simultaneously turned to look at one another with expressions of almost comical counteraction to a response that clearly called forth the fact that more time had passed during their retirement than they had cared to consider.

END OF CHAPTER 2


	3. Chapter 3

**THE 43 YEARS AFTER AFFAIR**

Chapter 3

"How do you think top-secret organizations get most of their hardware?"

Having reached the wharves far faster than they might have had Illya not relied upon the rental car's GPS system, both reactivated agents bartered for a boat which wouldn't arouse suspicions. Then he set course for that secretive section of an otherwise unspecified segment of Canadian shores whereupon the two U.N.C.L.E. agents would proceed against the THRUSH installation situated a few short-but-treacherous miles inland.

While Illya, yet again, manned the wheel, Napoleon took the time desperately needed for using an old-fashioned paper map in order to memorize the route required for a secretive trek by foot in order to cross via stealthy access to the THRUSH site.

"I hope you've been keeping in shape these last couple of decades, Illya", Napoleon called up to his partner standing like a seasoned sea captain neatly navigating across currently still waters. "We've got a nice little hike ahead of us once we land."

"I've been walking between five to ten miles per day", Illya shouted back down, without turning toward his friend and fellow agent, "not to mention daily yoga and Pilates. I also find weekly acupuncture a nice way to..."

"Illya, that was a rhetorical statement", Napoleon pleaded in hopes of putting a stop to a ceaseless stream of needless information from U.N.C.L.E. Agent 2.

"Sorry", was all Illya managed, more amused than embarrassed. That'll teach Napoleon to bother me while I'm steering a boat across freezing waters, he thought with a touch of satire.

For pretty much the remainder of the watery route, the two U.N.C.L.E. agents kept to themselves, until it was, at last, time to step off the anchored-just-offshore boat and begin a half-jogging journey through a frosty forest and, inevitably, over small-but-challenging hills.

Once again, the two talk as they walk along their predetermined path.

"I assume you have our proposed direction committed to memory?" Illya asked drolly of Napoleon.

"Of course", Napoleon huffed and puffed, as it became comically clear to Illya that his partner was most surely not in shape. "Stick close...I don't want...to lose you out here."

Ignoring the jealous gibe, Illya remarked in a matter of fact fashion, "It's important for us to reach our destination before nightfall, Napoleon. As chilly as it is now, it'll be much, much worse once temperatures fall to well below freezing. Our suits, though exceptionally stylish, are simply not designed to properly protect us then."

"Once again", Napoleon replied with his statement staggered by his continued need for extra oxygen during their top-secret excursion, "your ability...to state the obvious...is unmatched...my fair-haired friend."

As the Canadian cold increased due to the loss of initial daylight, Illya and Napoleon now knelt atop a paltry rise, surrounded by largely leaf-free trees, to silently scrutinize the self-same THRUSH installation viewed earlier only in projected images. Only two armed, jumpsuit-and-beret wearing THRUSH thugs, continually patrolling the forward parameter of the sizeable building, stood in their way.

"Two of them, two of us", Illya stated concisely as he began putting together what would become his U.N.C.L.E. carbine via the use of add-ons attached with practiced skill onto his previously holstered Walther P38.

"Yeah", Napoleon replied through a few final gulps of air which burned still suffering lungs, "looks like our luck's...still there...even after all these years."

Then, finally, even as Illya completes the assembling of his own U.N.C.L.E. carbine, complete with telescopic scope, Napoleon was sufficiently replenished, physically, to pull his own Walther P38 and commence the change needed to alter a pistol into a carbine. Complete with extra-long ammo clip containing very real, very lethal 9mm Parabellum bullets as opposed to the high-velocity knockout shells they'd been forced to use in decades past.

Clearly the whole "Good Guy" mentality of the mid-20th Century, partially influenced by "flower power" Movements and demonstrations, had suffered greatly in the harsher, harder light of the early-21st. That was fine by Napoleon. Lethal force was always more welcome than having to worry about an opponent you knew would eventually regain consciousness and, therefore, have to be addressed again.

Napoleon silently assumed that even Illya's former non-violent viewpoints, which made him the darling of left-wing thinkers of their day, had taken a beating. Especially when suicidal terrorists could commandeer a jetliner and crash it into one of New York's tallest buildings, massacring many thousand in the process.

"Kill 'em all!" had definitely come to the forefront of modern-day mindsets...especially in cases of espionage.

"Ready?" Illya finally asked softly, not wishing to be overheard by the two THRUSH thugs a few hundred yards away from their currently elevated locality.

"Ready", nodded Napoleon, speaking just as softly yet still with a punch to his tone. Clearly he, at least, was starving to restart a clandestine career that included, like it or not, Illya!, liquidating the enemy with extreme prejudice.

Both U.N.C.L.E. agents, disregarding the notion of ruining their expensive designer suits, lay stomach-down atop the small rise. Then they aimed their respective weapons, via braced-for-steadiness elbows, while peering through telescopic sights that were, unfortunately, deficient in regards to any night vision capabilities. Quickly placing crosshairs squarely on the heads of the pacing back-and-forth THRUSH thugs. The kill shot simply had to put them down quickly and quietly.

"Now."

Pft! Pft!

No sooner do two average-sized bodies drop, dead, than two U.N.C.L.E. agents scramble to their lavishly shoed feet in order to dash down the Lilliputian hill, U.N.C.L.E. carbines clutched tightly with safeties secured.

"Still can't understand", Illya deliberated aloud, even as they hurriedly closed on the two dead THRUSH thugs, "why THRUSH would blatantly abandon the use of closed circuit cameras at the entrance end of their installation."

"I'm sure it's not THRUSH, so much", rebutted Napoleon as he once again started sucking in huge gulps of air while struggling to stay alongside his partner, "as Andrew Vulcan. Ever since what happened to him 43 years ago in that explosion...he probably preferred people to technology."

"Strange", Illya promptly replied, just as the two of them reached the bottom where the land leveled out, "considering that, according to U.N.C.L.E. Intel, technology, in the way of cybernetics, is responsible for his still being alive and able to walk at all."

"Well", Napoleon heaved between great gasps meant to appease his desperate shortage for oxygen, "there you go. If I had to rely on small mechanical implants to make it from one day to the next, I'd tend to hate the technologies that saved me, too."

"His loss, our gain."

Napoleon nodded in agreement to that comment made by Illya, as both drug the two dead THRUSH thugs, shot precisely through the head, off to either side of the aboveground building complex. Then both donned the jumpsuits and berets and took possession of the firearms previously clutched in death grips by the two dead men.

Meeting back up before the installation's entrance, Illya was audibly admiring the new rifles being carried by such THRUSH operatives.

"Beautiful. Heckler-and-Koch XM8. Uses 5.56 NATO rounds. Can fire 750 rounds-per-minute. Muzzle velocity, 920 meters-per-second. Excellent Tasco PDP2 sighting system, augmented, it appears, with infrared night vision capabilities, not too dissimilar to their former sighting system, although a little more compact. Fairly lightweight. Solid."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Illya", Napoleon surmised an instant later, "but didn't the U.S. Army cancel the contract on these rifles on October 31st, 2005?"

Illya gave a sideways glance that was as deadpan as any Napoleon had ever experienced regarding his sometimes cerebral partner, then contested, "How do you think top-secret organizations get most of their hardware?"

"Ready, my Russian friend?" Napoleon Solo asked somewhat anxiously as he tentatively tightened his hold on the XM8, safety switched off in preparation for unmediated use (just in case).

Having done much the same with the XM8 in his hands, Illya Kuryakin looked at his lifelong friend and fellow U.N.C.L.E. agent and surreptitiously replied, "As ready as I'll ever be, my American friend."

"Let's do it!"

END OF CHAPTER 3


	4. Chapter 4

**THE 43 YEARS AFTER AFFAIR**

Chapter 4

"Did I Do Something to Upset You?"

Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo, Heckler-and-Koch XM8s in their hands, proceeded through the main entrance of the large isolated THRUSH installation.

"You go that way", Napoleon suggested with a jab of the barrel end of his XM8, causing Illya to look in that direction, "and I'll go this way. Use your pen communicator to stay in touch."

"Is it wise that we separate?" Illya asked stoically.

Answering with a half-shrug and swift smile, Napoleon replied, "If we go two separate ways, it's a lot more likely that at least one of us can see this mission affair through to the end."

With a lazily lifted eyebrow, Illya smiled and said, "That's quite logical, Napoleon. Definitely not like you."

Offering no response, save a slanted smirk bespeaking of their decades-old camaraderie, Napoleon Solo slipped off to the left, while Illya did the same to the right.

The two recently reactivated U.N.C.L.E. agents proceeded with a stealth born out of an exceptionally long time as clandestine operatives for the number one top-secret establishment in the entire world; safety switches of their borrowed XM8s off and trigger fingers poised alongside triggers, the two continued on.

In the meantime, Andrew Vulcan ultimately gave in to the palpable pain brought about from shuffling around the affluent offices of GlobeChem Corporation. The cybernetics making his damaged muscles work, along with surgically-implanted flex-rods holding together a nearly destroyed spine, damn you, Napoleon Solo!, and gradually eased himself down into a high-backed, very padded office chair behind a plain cold metal desk.

"It would appear, Mr. Driscoll", Andrew Vulcan stated with a shaky smirk on his scarred face while addressing his lieutenant, Darien Driscoll, "that my 'prayers' have been answered. According to this computer screen beside my desk, tied in with those small interior cameras you, rightfully, argued should be included in this installation's design...Napoleon Solo, my old nemesis, seems to be coming straight to me. I shall have my vengeance at long last."

Snapping to, like a good little soldier, Darien promptly asked, "Should I send guards to kill him, Mr. Vulcan?"

"No!" snapped the physically and mentally scarred Andrew Vulcan, stiffly shifting his seated position, still eyeing the closed circuit picture displayed flawlessly on the computer's screen. "No, Mr. Driscoll...let him come directly to me. I want to...relish his final moments."

Though Darien Driscoll considered his superior's plan borderline idiocy, he would've been the last person to show dissent involving any THRUSH chief...especially him.

If face-to-face vengeance was what Andrew Vulcan craved, then face-to-face vengeance is what he would get.

At that same moment, snaking through one side of the building's interior, which seemed more a glorified industrial-sized storage facility than anything else did, was the U.N.C.L.E. agent Andrew Vulcan despised so intensely. Moving in and around crates of all sizes, some twice that of a full-sized suburban vehicle.

God only knew what was actually stored within them.

Whatever was inside them, Napoleon Solo was absolutely certain that the destructive laser device he and Illya were here to obliterate, before next eliminating Andrew Vulcan, was much worse. Still, as important as the first part was, Napoleon found he was actually looking forward to the second part even more.

This time, Napoleon silently promised himself while ducking and dodging in and around the stacks of crates inside this THRUSH installation, I'll make damn sure Vulcan doesn't manage to escape. I'll put a 9mm bullet square through his noble brain. Hell, it'll probably be more a mercy killing than an assassination from the images Ms. Hall showed us.

On the opposite side of the sizeable interior skulked Illya Kuryakin. Unlike Napoleon, his primary concern was the first part of the mission affair: the systematic destruction of the directed energy weapons network. He'd leave it to his friend and fellow U.N.C.L.E. agent to satisfy the second part.

To Illya, this was no more personal than the seemingly endless other top-secret cases he'd undertaken as an U.N.C.L.E. agent since 1964. Still, if Andrew Vulcan somehow came to stand between him and the weaponized laser system...

It was at that instant that Illya heard the humming of what sounded like an elevator on approach from somewhere deep beneath his feet. Ducking behind and between two stacks of large crates, the XM8 held tightly with both hands, trigger finger now lightly caressing its trigger, Illya readied himself to kill any and all THRUSH operatives who might emerge.

There was no time, even, for Illya to use his pen communicator to contact Napoleon and let him know others were coming. So he waited.

Watching around the corner of the lowest wooden crate of the stack in front of him, Illya saw the secret elevator arrive even as a false section of inner wall slid open to reveal the lift car within. One which had just brought two more armed-with-XM8 THRUSH thugs from some subterranean section.

They couldn't be allowed to live or else they would discover that two of their number had been shot and stripped, meaning two enemy agents were somewhere within.

Still, Illya didn't want to use a weapon like the XM8, which had no silencer fitted onto its flash-suppressor equipped muzzle, so he gently leaned it against the stack of multi-ton crates behind him. Then, moving with the light-footed stealth of a cat, Illya inched to the side closest to the building's center. All the while easing out his holstered Walther P38, then furtively retrieving the pistol's silencer from the attachments pack positioned behind his back. And, then, quickly yet quietly, screwing it in place.

Knowing that the silencer would make whispers of any gunshots, Illya took hasty-yet-spot-on aim, squeezed the trigger twice, Pft! Pft!, and two 9mm Parabellum bullets burrowed bloodily into the base of two human skulls destroying two human brains in the process.

Thus dropping two more THRUSH gunmen as easily as dropping marionettes whose strings were suddenly cut.

Napoleon barely heard the double tap of silenced gunfire yet knew, without looking, that Illya had evidently discovered, then dispatched, two more THRUSH goons standing between them and the successful completion of their mission affair.

Good boy, Illya, he thought with an inward grin, you keep watching our backs and I'll see to it Andrew Vulcan never troubles U.N.C.L.E. again.

By the time Illya had made his way to the still-open secret elevator, its lift car silently waiting for return use, Napoleon had rounded the rear wall to join him, noticing right away that Illya had already holstered his Walther P38 to once again fondle the Heckler-and-Koch XM8.

"Looks like neither of us plans on being quiet once we get below", Napoleon wisecracked just before either of them stepped past the standing-open false wall/elevator door.

"Something tells me we won't have to be", Illya replied in return, "once we do start down."

"After you, my Russian friend", Napoleon said with a friendly smirk, while gesturing with his XM8.

"Beauty before age, Napoleon?" Illya gibed, smilingly, as he stepped into the elevator's car first with Napoleon following quickly behind, causing the door to slide shut.

"Why do I get the feeling", Napoleon lamented as the elevator lurched to began its downward path, "that we're already expected?"

"One thing's for certain", Illya said with a tense but steady tone, "things have gone much too easy for us not to be."

As the elevator continued down into the subterranean THRUSH headquarters nestled in Canada's chilled wilderness, both U.N.C.L.E. agents popped out the transparent banana ammo clips, then slap-inserted them back into their proper place. Then, fluidly, giving a proper yank of the cock-and-lock bolt on the weapon's side in order to chamber that all-important first 5.56 NATO round of the full auto weapon.

They both instinctively knew that, once the elevator's door opened at some point down below, they would have to literally hit the ground running.

And shooting.

Even as the two U.N.C.L.E. agents readied themselves for a firefight, Andrew Vulcan had issued the order to clear all underground corridors in order to more readily invite his adversaries deeper inside.

When the time was right, both agents would be properly dealt with.

And then...

"Here we go", Napoleon said somberly, his XM8 aiming outward, just as the elevator car stopped and its door rumbled open, revealing the corridor of a sub-floor of this underground THRUSH HQ.

"Where is everybody?" Illya asked rhetorically, his own XM8 aimed outward as well.

Both agents glanced at one another, inwardly wondering about this overt lack of defense yet secretly assuming that it was exactly what it appeared to be.

"Trap", Napoleon noted in a hushed aside as that same realization flashed through Illya's forethought.

One more shared glance between the two, then both, as a single unit, stepped cautiously out of the lift car. The elevator's door sliding shut in their excessively cautious wake.

"I hate to say it, Napoleon", began Illya with a groan whose meaning was instantly understood.

"I know, Illya", Napoleon chimed in a moment after, "we'll have to split up...again."

"Excellent", hissed Andrew Vulcan while watching the digital display of the two U.N.C.L.E. operatives on his computer's screen. "I could not have hoped for a more perfect plot. It would seem, Mr. Driscoll, that although I have lost natural muscular function...not to mention all my prime years...I have not lost my cunning. Yes?"

Afraid to do anything less than agree with his twisted, physically as well as psychologically, superior, Darien Driscoll only nodded, "Yes...of course, sir."

If Darien Driscoll had had his way from the start, every armed THRUSH operative would've already blown these two aging U.N.C.L.E. agents to bits in their vicinity.

Allowing their blood to openly flow through these self-same corridors.

No need, however, in risking his own death to verbally second-guess the scarred, cybernetic-assisted Andrew Vulcan; not when it was clear that, eventually, this barely-alive old man would be dead. Thus leaving the leadership of THRUSH to Darien Driscoll.

Then everything would most definitely be handled differently.

"Once again", Napoleon suggested with a gentle gesture of his XM8 down one particular corridor, "I'll go this way..."

"And I shall go that way", finished Illya with a directional nod of his blonde head. "Call out if you need me."

Understanding instantly that Illya was referencing their pen communicators, Napoleon nodded, then proceeding down the corridor branch he had previously selected for himself. While Illya slipped down the other one.

"Have THRUSH guards", groaned Andrew Vulcan as he slowly stood, "meet the blonde-haired agent. They may kill him as quickly or as slowly as they wish. Mr. Solo, however, shall be met by me."

Before Darien Driscoll could offer an objection, the heavily scarred, aged Andrew Vulcan opened a right-hand drawer of his plain metal desk and removed a Luger pistol, ironically also loaded with a clip of 9mm Parabellum bullets, just like the Walther P38s. Then slide-cocked it with a depraved gleam in old eyes set deep in a devastated face. A smile shakily showing yellowed teeth.

"I shall go to meet", he snarled murderously, "Napoleon Solo."

Darien Driscoll could not help but allow the same dastardly smile to slowly form on his own, infinitely younger and decidedly more handsome, countenance. For the first time since Andrew Vulcan's seemingly insane plan had been formulated, he understood.

As Illya cautiously made his way down his corridor branch toward an intersection of same, XM8 held firmly ready to use without hesitation, the Russian-born U.N.C.L.E. agent could not foresee the gathering of perhaps two dozen XM8-armed THRUSH ruffians to either side.

The only luck he had operating in his favor was the fact that said THRUSH operatives were in one another's line of fire. Thus they could not open up with their XM8s, but would, rather, be forced to rely upon tried-and-true hand-to-hand combat tactics.

So, no sooner did Illya inch into the middle of said corridor intersection...

"Get him!"

He suddenly found himself the flesh-and-blood practice dummy for a rather large number of jumpsuit-and-beret wearing thugs using their hands and feet in basic martial arts mode; however, Illya Kuryakin was, if nothing else, just as well-trained in weaponless fighting as he was with weapons.

Though he didn't get the chance to squeeze off even a single burst from the XM8, Illya still managed to expertly plant a punch here and a kick there in such a fashion as to send several of his attackers, either dead or dying, to the spotless corridor floor. Unfortunately for him, however, age combined with inactivity along with the sheer numbers assaulting him from every side...

"We have him!" one of the larger, a good 6'9", 325 pounds and none of it useless fat, THRUSH goons proclaimed delightedly as Illya went down.

As the still-standing THRUSH operatives gathered about the blonde-haired/blue-eyed man from U.N.C.L.E., he quizzically queried, "Did I do something to upset you?"

END OF CHAPTER 4


	5. Chapter 5

**THE 43 YEARS AFTER AFFAIR**

Chapter 5

"You look good...for a dead man"

A solid kick from a booted foot sent Illya Kuryakin down in utter unconsciousness, after which he was dragged away by the still-standing THRUSH thugs. They'd decided that since his inevitable demise was up to them, they would wait until he'd regained his senses before slowly torturing this past-his-prime U.N.C.L.E. agent to a pain-racked death.

At that same moment, Napoleon Solo, ignorant to Illya's desperate situation, stopped long enough to pull his pen communicator from the pocket of the stylish suit's coat worn beneath the borrowed THRUSH togs.

Going through the necessary process by which an ordinary looking "ink pen" was transformed into a sleek and high-tech communications device, Napoleon's low-toned voice spoke into the combination microphone-speaker.

"Illya? Come in, Illya. Come in, old friend. Illya?"

Realizing that either Illya Kuryakin was incapacitated, at best, or deceased at worst, Napoleon next tried a different tactic as he twisted the clip-switch in a different direction while intoning, "Open Channel D, open Channel D..."

This time, unlike his initial attempt while en route to their Canadian wilderness destination, a female voice responded via the speaker-microphone combo.

"Channel D open, Mr. Solo. Go ahead."

"Illya and I have successfully infiltrated the THRUSH HQ here in Canada", Napoleon droned on in a cautiously hushed timbre with the pen communicator held in one hand the XM8 in the other, "Have lost touch with Mr. Kuryakin...has he contacted you?"

"Negative, Mr. Solo", the sensual Channel D voice stated passionlessly, "you're the first since..."

Hearing movement further down the corridor he'd been so discreetly roving, Napoleon quickly switched off his pen communicator, while also bringing his cocked-and-loaded XM8 to bear in a half-crouched stance of readiness.

The instant any THRUSH operatives stepped around that next corner, Napoleon planned on sending a hail of 5.56 NATO rounds directly into them.

However, just as the approaching footfalls, representative of several THRUSH hoods, seemed a scant two or three feet from this particular underground intersection...

"Drop the weapon, Mr. Solo."

Feeling the cold metal of a pistol muzzle pressing against the back of his head, Napoleon did as he was instructed. Besides, Napoleon easily recognized the voice as one he had not heard for 43 years.

"Well", he began as he slowly lifted his hands in suitable surrender, "Mr. Vulcan, I presume."

"Turn around, Mr. Solo", Andrew Vulcan instructed as the muzzle of the Luger no longer pressed against the back of Napoleon Solo's head, "slowly."

A bemused smirk on his handsome-despite-advancing-years face, framed by mostly-gray hair that was still as stylishly coifed as the THRUSH chieftain remembered, Napoleon now faced his aged adversary and contemptuously taunted, "You look good...for a dead man."

Moving faster than his aging, gnarled body seemed capable, an equally smirking Andrew Vulcan brought the butt of his Luger down hard onto the forehead of his surrendered enemy. Sending Napoleon hard, and quite unconscious, to the spotless corridor floor.

As his smirk of loathing became a grin of impending triumph, Andrew Vulcan barked a single instruction to the approaching THRUSH henchmen, "Take him to the interrogation center. I have some...lost time to mend."

END OF CHAPTER 5


	6. Chapter 6

**THE 43 YEARS AFTER AFFAIR**

Chapter 6

"Any last requests?"

Illya awoke with a throbbing headache, blurred vision, and the distinct taste of blood on the back of his tongue. Struggling to sit up against a cold, metal wall, he realized his hands were bound tightly at the wrist behind his back via PlastiCuffs. As well as the unmistakable fact that the borrowed THRUSH togs had been roughly removed along with both his suit's coat and the Walther P38 from his shoulder holster.

As his vision cleared, Illya saw three THRUSH goons sitting at a table playing poker.

"Call", the Big Guy who'd earlier brought Illya down, snarled as he scooted a few more poker chips into the center of the metal tabletop to merge with those already there.

"Three tens", one of the two others proudly proclaimed even as the third tossed down his own cards in disgust. Then the smirking Big Guy laid down his own cards with the practiced pride of someone definitely holding the winning hand.

"Full house...Jacks over eights."

"Damn!" exclaimed the second of the three jumpsuit-and-beret wearing operatives even as the Big Guy used oversized hands to scoop the just-won chips over to his side.

"Another hand?" he asked with a malicious snarl that strongly suggested to the other two, who were several inches and a hundred or so pounds smaller, that they had little choice in the matter. Such was when Illya decided to speak up from his side of the large, essentially empty room.

"You know, I'm a fair poker player myself."

The Big Guy stopped in mid-shuffle as all three of them glared in his direction with loathing burning in their cold, cruel eyes.

"And what makes you think you have anything we'd want?" growled the Big Guy as he set aside the deck and malevolently cracked the knuckles of both huge hands. Just the kind of attitude Illya believed he could use to his own advantage.

It was either that or face the very real probability that he would soon be quite dead.

At that self-same moment, far removed from Illya's makeshift detention cell, Napoleon Solo was regaining consciousness to the tune of ice cold water being tossed into his face.

Like Illya, Napoleon's head was mercilessly pounding along with the palpitations of his heart; unlike Illya, his hands had not been bound in any way. Instead, Napoleon found himself sitting in a less-than-comfortable chair of icy-cold metal feeling the smallest trickle of blood lazily rolling down the same forehead so ruthlessly assaulted by a pistol in the hands of the man currently glaring at him from the other side of a plain metal desk.

"Welcome back, Mr. Solo", Andrew Vulcan rumbled even as the purest of hate shone in dark eyes that seemed exactly like those the recently reactivated man from U.N.C.L.E. recalled so clearly from 43 years before. "I trust you are in pain."

"Nothing a stiff drink and a beautiful woman wouldn't take care of", Napoleon quipped with a crooked grin as he crossed one leg. "You wouldn't happen to have either one of those, would you, Mr. Vulcan?"

"As I recall", Andrew Vulcan managed, even though his temper was threatening to become as volatile as the god, Vulcan, of Roman mythology, "the last time you were with a beautiful woman, Mr. Solo, the two of you were hung by your wrists and left to the mercy of superheated steam. I'm sure we could arrange such a situation again, if you'd like."

Recalling that exceedingly unpleasant situation and believing Andrew Vulcan wouldn't hesitate to put some other innocent female in such a deadly position just to add more torment to Napoleon's imminent demise, he managed with a smug smile, "That's okay, Mr. Vulcan, I wouldn't want to put you out."

At that, any semblance of a smile quickly vanished from Andrew Vulcan's scarred, wrinkled features as he slowly rose to his feet. Then he proceeded around the metal desk with visibly lurching movements that left little doubt that the cybernetic implants making it possible for those semi-stiffened legs to move at all were also responsible for a significant amount of agony.

No wonder, Napoleon silently considered, this guy wants to kill me so slowly. Imagine spending four decades in that kind of constant pain. Still, he deserves every moment of such torment...bastard!

Not wishing Andrew Vulcan to see such obvious emotion coursing through his clear-as-always hazel eyes, Napoleon coolly stood as well in a manner reminiscent of someone's guest simply standing to speak with an old friend.

"Well now, Mr. Vulcan", Napoleon began with an audible clearing of his throat and still-slanted smirk, "any last requests?"

Andrew Vulcan, now within an arm's length of the casually standing, hands in pants pockets, U.N.C.L.E. operative, had the ready-to-fire Luger in one hand. He allowed insult to fuel his inner rage causing him to swiftly, powerfully backhand the side of Napoleon Solo's still-handsome, damn him!, features.

Though not enough to drop Napoleon, the blow was at least enough to cause sharp pain in that side of his jaw to overwhelm the remaining throbs of pain from his trickling-blood forehead.

"Though you're clearly attempting to provoke me to recklessness, Mr. Solo", snarled the undisputed chief of THRUSH, "you shall die so slowly that your eventual passing shall prove a welcome reprieve. After you."

Having sufficiently insulted and enraged the Big Guy, who's name Illya Kuryakin had since learned was Willy "Bruiser" MacBride, the Russian-born U.N.C.L.E. agent found himself being tossed for the second time across the cold expanse of the metal-walled room being used to detain him.

His hands still tightly bound by plastic zip-tie behind his back, Illya spat out a little blood, then taunted, "You aren't as tough as you look, Mr. MacBride. Perhaps THRUSH has lowered its standards since my day."

"Grrrr-arrrrr!"

With that the sufficiently antagonized "Bruiser" MacBride rushed forward even as the other two, smaller, THRUSH thugs cheered him on while still seated at the smooth, metal table. Their mistake.

Having just risen to his expensively shoed feet, Illya promptly lowered his blonde-haired head and thrust himself forward at the same speed as the large THRUSH hood rushing toward him, planting that head firmly into the solar plexus of the much larger man.

"Ooof!"

No sooner had the maneuver brought the huge head of the 6'9" behemoth down than Illya brought his own smaller head up with enough force to not only knock teeth and blood from "Bruiser" MacBride's mouth, but snap that huge head back with enough force for the proverbial knockout blow. Dropping the Big Guy backward to land with a resounding Thud-Clang! on the hard, cold metal floor.

In the split-second that saw the two smaller THRUSH goons gaping at their fallen champion, Illya shoulder-rolled across the metal table, sending poker cards and chips sailing. Then, he quickly kicked out with his feet in order to plant the heels of those expensive shoes firmly against the jaws of those remaining between him and freedom.

After landing on the other side of the metal table, in between the two smaller unconscious THRUSH thugs, Illya put the yoga and Pilates he'd bragged about to Napoleon to use. He worked those tightly secured hands down around his rear, beneath his bent legs and feet, and, inevitably, bringing them before his body in order to use his teeth to gradually work the plastic zip-tie loose in order to free himself.

Finding his Walther P38 in jumpsuit pocket of one of the unconscious "Bruiser" MacBride, blood still oozing from his broken lips, Illya was now ready to rescue his friend and fellow U.N.C.L.E. agent, Napoleon Solo.

END OF CHAPTER 6


	7. Chapter 7

**THE 43 YEARS AFTER AFFAIR**

Chapter 7

"Happy Death-day to you..."

Napoleon Solo soon found himself dangling by handcuffs attached to a special stainless steel chain-and-hook rigging some three-and-a-half feet above the spotless floor of a circular room located deep within the sprawling subterranean THRUSH complex.

Although the aging U.N.C.L.E. agent allowed the armed-with-a-Luger Andrew Vulcan, followed closely by his THRUSH lieutenant, Darien Driscoll, to force him to this area and, once here, permitted two THRUSH thugs to truss him up like a hunter's curing kill, he still held out hope of finding some means of getting out alive. After all, being a top U.N.C.L.E. agent meant never entirely submitting to the "crueler fates".

"In case you are wondering what I plan for you, Mr. Solo", Andrew Vulcan commented coldly, while two THRUSH goons to bring in a pair of dolly trucks with two sizeable steel drums with taps attached to their facing sides, "I have long dreamed of paying you back in kind for what you did to me four decades ago."

"A nice 'thank you, Agent Solo' would've been enough, Vulcan", Napoleon joked with an agonized grunt as the strain of dangling began to take its toll upon back muscles that had, until recently, enjoyed soothing massages at the exclusive club to which he'd belonged since long before retirement.

Still struggling against the rage seething beneath his disfigured surface, Andrew Vulcan, his Luger never wavering, continued his malevolent explanation regardless of Napoleon's strained bravado.

"What you have in these two drums are chemicals that, unless mingled, are relatively stable. However, I have no intention of leaving it at that. Should I even presume that you are at all familiar with hypergolic fuels, Mr. Solo?"

Fighting against the advancing pain in both back and, now, arms, Napoleon attempted to redeem himself, in the face of his inevitable death, by replying with a barely audible groan/grunt, "Of course. Hypergolic fuels are any chemicals that...when combined...become unstable...and, therefore, explosive. Such fuels are used...in controlled, measured amounts...and regulated releases...in both ICBMs and today's space industry for..."

"Enough!" shrieked an furious Andrew Vulcan even as he fired four 9mm bullets from his Luger which zip close by the dangling Napoleon, but not hitting him. "We will see how witty you can remain when aniline-nitric acid combines beneath you to erupt in a blazing explosion that will kill you in the manner you meant for me! And I hope you suffer greatly, even if for only a few short seconds! Afterwards, I shall proceed with my plans to obliterate all of New York City and your U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in my bid, on behalf of THRUSH, for ultimate world domination!"

"You know, Vulcan", Napoleon managed with a sweating mask of barely contained pain on his face, "no matter what happens to me...or to Illya...U.N.C.L.E. will stop you... and THRUSH."

"We shall see", Andrew Vulcan replied even as he lowered his Luger's still smoking muzzle while preparing to exit the circular chamber with Darien Driscoll in tow, "but I'm afraid, Mr. Solo, that such will no longer matter to you. Good-bye...Napoleon."

A silent signal was given by the lumbering/limping via agonized implant-assisted leg muscles and rod-stiff back as he and his lieutenant exited via the only door in and out. A signal that induced the lesser THRUSH operatives to simultaneously open the taps on the two drums to allow the viscous liquids to slowly snake their way across a metallic floor's ever-so-slight slope.

By the calm manner in which both THRUSH thugs exited and closed the single metal door, it was clear to Napoleon Solo that it would take several nerve-racking minutes before the unstable liquids merged in order to initiate the explosive eruption of force and flame. An explosion that would guarantee a flesh-ripping/bone-snapping end to the man who'd caused something similar to happen to Andrew Vulcan.

"Happy Death-day to me", Napoleon laughingly sang to himself as the combination of pained knotted muscles combined with the numbing knowledge of an impending incendiary demise, "Happy Death-day to me...Happy Death-day, dear Napoleon..."

"Happy Death-daaaaayyyyyy...tooooo...yoooouuuuu."

Blinking his eyes, vision blurred by both sweat and sustained pain in arms and back, Napoleon Solo strained to see...

"Illya!"

END OF CHAPTER 7


	8. Chapter 8

**THE 43 YEARS AFTER AFFAIR**

Chapter 8/Conclusion

"Oh, that was nothing..."

As Illya helped supply the upward leverage needed for his friend to lift handcuffed hands off the hook-and-chain rigging and as Napoleon silently implore the blood to begin circulating through his aching arms again...

"I...I thought you were dead", Napoleon managed to state at last even as his Russian friend used a hidden-within-his-waistband lock-pick to remove the shiny metal handcuffs.

"As I thought about you", Illya said with a smile as Napoleon rubbed the redness from his wrists and as both quickly looked at the ever-closing explosive liquid combo about to converge at their feet. "And if we don't hurry..."

"Point taken", Napoleon promptly responded.

With that, these men from U.N.C.L.E. hurriedly left the area, yanking the blast-proof door closed in their wake, just as the aniline-nitric acid met with explosive results.

BRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!

Picking themselves off the corridor floor beyond, Napoleon and Illya share a brief moment of relief before quickly scrambling to their well-shoed feet.

"Here, you might need this", said Illya as he handed the second of two Walther P38s to his American friend and fellow agent.

"Gee", Napoleon responded facetiously while slide-cocking his favored weapon, "thanks. But I didn't get anything for you."

A hasty half-grin from Illya told Napoleon that the jest was appreciated in light of all they'd been through, but the Russian then urged, "Time to fulfill our mission affair's objectives, old friend."

"I'd wager", Napoleon pondered with a curt nod, "that both objectives can be found in the same place. Let's go."

"Status report on the laser uplink, Mr. Driscoll", Andrew Vulcan demanded as he eased himself into a metal chair obediently placed behind him by a THRUSH minion as previously mangled muscles screamed for some small respite.

"Only twenty-two minutes to go, Mr. Vulcan", Darien Driscoll replied while looking at the digital countdown timer clutched in one hand. Then, quickly, glancing at the centralized laser weapon uplink system, which would instantly tie-in to any number of low-to-mid orbital satellites and transfer the totality of concentrated laser energy to be redirected onto a preprogrammed target destination. All within a matter of mere seconds.

"Twenty-two minutes", considered Andrew Vulcan aloud as an insane gleam shined in his dark eyes from an even darker soul. "Soon, Mr. Driscoll, the world shall be mine."

"You mean 'ours'", corrected Darien Driscoll, daring to challenge his superior for the first time since his surgical resurrection, "and THRUSH's."

Leveling his sinister gaze upon his lieutenant, Andrew Vulcan reiterated with devilish determination, "I meant exactly what I said, Mr. Driscoll. Mind the countdown...unless you have developed a death wish."

Suddenly, doubt crept into Darien Driscoll's mind as he watched the falling digits displayed on his palm-sized timer. As obedient as he'd been to Andrew Vulcan since the inception of this directed energy weapon plan, his deepest sense of duty was still to THRUSH itself.

Not to mention his own inane need to be a leader instead of being led.

"Time, Mr. Driscoll", loudly demanded Andrew Vulcan even as he shifted uncomfortably/painfully in the all-metal chair in which he'd been sitting. His tone leaving little room for even a hint of disobedience.

"It's time for this THRUSH installation to fall short of its mad goal, Vulcan", Napoleon proclaimed as he and Illya stood just inside the laser uplink area, both having used their add-ons to turn their pistols into carbines again.

"Solo!" roared Andrew Vulcan as his cybernetic-assisted leg muscles propelled him to his feet with sheer rage canceling out searing pain.

"Kill them!" shouted Darien Driscoll so loudly the two words seemed to echo endlessly within the opened ceiling laser staging area, while also ducking out of the line of fire.

Even as armed THRUSH thugs began firing their XM8s, both U.N.C.L.E. agents leapt out of the way then rolled along the gleaming floor even as hundreds of 5.56 NATO rounds ricocheted all about them; with practiced ease both agents returned fire with short-but-controlled bursts from their fully-assembled U.N.C.L.E. carbines.

"Noooooooooooooo!"

Even as Andrew Vulcan's exclamation of virulent disbelief merged with the firing of opposing weapons, a hail of 9mm Parabellum bullets bloodily tore through a scarred, decrepit body as well as impacting with the delicate electronics of the oversized laser weapon. All while Darien Driscoll rushed through a nearby door in order to live to fight another day.

As the misfiring laser beams bounced back upon itself, it immediately set up a volatile self-destructive situation...

"Let's get the hell outta here, Illya!"

Hundreds of miles away, in the top-secret headquarters of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, a down-angled satellite view of the THRUSH installation's large aboveground building.

"Oh, my God", gasped a beautiful young woman, the upside-down triangle badge attached to her business-like blouse brandishing the number "32" and who'd been manning the com center, over the site of such widespread devastation, suddenly realized what it might mean for the two out-of-retirement U.N.C.L.E. agents. "Com to control."

In the spotless office of the current head of the New York U.N.C.L.E., busily looking over a variety of computerized data-pads involving half-a-dozen mission affairs about the world, Ms. Allison Hall, responded to the intercom call by tapping a single flashing colored square on the oval table's smooth metal top.

"Control, com, go ahead."

"Ma'am", began the young woman in com center via the unseen speaker system, "we've just received the latest satellite visual downloads of the Canadian THRUSH headquarters. It's been completely destroyed."

Sensing there was more to it than that, Ms. Hall stopped multitasking long enough to press, "What about our operatives, com?"

There quickly came a pregnant pause, followed by a noticeably passionate reply, "I...I'm afraid...from the swiftness of the explosions..."

Cutting her off, Ms. Hall was quick to conclude, "Understood, com. Control out."

Setting aside the data-pad she'd just been reviewing, Ms. Hall slowly sank back into the ultra-modern chair with a peculiar look of loss on her beautiful features and a hint of sorrow in her bedroom eyes.

In the privacy of her office, underneath her slowly exhaled breath, one name was whispered with a genuine sense of personal elegy.

"Illya..."

At that exact instant, on the outskirts of a chilled-by-nightfall wilderness of mostly leaf-free trees, two well-dressed individuals make their way, at a slow trot, away from the earlier scene of destruction.

"Looks like we got out just in time", Illya Kuryakin commented while sucking in wintry air to make up for the exhaustion quickly creeping into his over-the-hill body.

Glancing over with a look of bemused mockery, Napoleon Solo said amidst vast wheezes, "I said it before...I'll say it again...you always know how to...state the obvious."

"Well", Illya finally replied as his heaved exhalations formed cold clouds of mist trailing behind him, "here's another obvious observation, Napoleon...it's getting colder. We'd better step it up, if we want to reach our anchored boat before we freeze to death."

All Napoleon could do, largely because he was having to huff and puff his way along at this point, was shake his head as the two formerly retired U.N.C.L.E. agents continued in the direction of the Canadian shoreline.

Eventually, the two chilled-to-the-bone operatives made their way back across calm lake waters, along highways and byways of upper Missouri, until they were airborne again in the officially chartered U.N.C.L.E. jet.

Having contacted U.N.C.L.E. HQ via pen communicator while in flight, Napoleon led Illya; both now rested and warm, through the busy JFK terminal in order to head for the official vehicle promised to whisk them back into the city proper.

"After this successful completion of a mission affair", Illya reasoned, "it'll be more or less a foregone conclusion that we shall be asked to remain permanently out of retirement. That's really something, don't you think, Napoleon?"

Spying, no pun intended, a beautiful lady in her late-twenties smiling directly at him, the graying Napoleon Solo planted a slanted smirk on his maturated countenance while replying absently, "Oh, that was nothing, my Russian friend...now this will be a victory."

Even as Napoleon walked across the crowded terminal's interior to introduce himself to the still-smiling young lady, the Russian-born U.N.C.L.E. agent called after, "But what about the car waiting to pick us up?"

Half-turning just enough to shoot Illya a look of comical expectations regarding midnight amour, Napoleon mouthed, "I'll take a taxi...later."

END


End file.
